Keely Murphy has misplaced depend of what number of clothes she owns. She tells me there are roughly 5 racks of classic clothes simply out of sight within the subsequent room of her Los Angeles apartment-turned-design studio. Then, there are a pair extra closets of garments right here and there. Oh, and a storage stuffed with bins. “I’ve all the time cherished shopping for. I most likely have 100 clothes, possibly extra,” she says. “It’s an issue.”
However it’s not actually an issue. Murphy operates in an if-you-know-you-know area within the vogue world, because the one-woman operation behind her namesake clothes model Keely whose devoted followers embody vogue energy gamers like Kendall Jenner and Emma Chamberlain. Keely is the place Murphy lives out her dress-up fantasies by way of her made-to-order designs, every hand-painted with electrical colours harking back to classic textile prints from floral motifs to remixes of plaid on hand-picked deadstock classic silhouettes. There’s elegant, long-stemmed roses cascading down a slip costume; huge, pouty, candy-apple-red lipstick kisses on vivid white tights; orange California poppies bursting in a 2-D superbloom on a traditional, crisp tank high; outsized button-downs with summary, David Hockney-adjacent splashes of water; or cozy sweatpants that includes a slick martini, with one excellent inexperienced olive.
“I’ve all the time been into amassing. My dad and mom collected antiques and they also would take me to Rose Bowl Flea Market as a child, after which as soon as I used to be buying round by myself, I began going to the clothes facet and simply cherished enjoying the dress-up half,” the 30-year-old says. “The way in which I’ve structured my enterprise sort of permits me to scratch that buying itch once I’m sourcing these classic items.”
Because the not-so-athletic youngster of a really athletic Manhattan Seashore household, Murphy opted for a distinct extracurricular route: artwork class. Murphy started taking weekly portray classes within the fourth grade, and honing her vogue style by way of journeys to the Fairfax Flea Market. Ultimately, amassing classic items changed into curating them. Upon graduating from UCLA with a level in Studio Artwork, Murphy’s closet had grown with sufficient eclectic, classic, and designer items that she was capable of pivot into industrial and editorial styling for manufacturers like Jeffrey Campbell and Nasty Gal. “It form of began as a result of I had so many garments,” she explains. “I would get employed to do styling jobs and simply be working with my very own classic.”
However styling rapidly turned a drag, and Murphy started weighing her profession choices; she needed to proceed working in vogue on her personal phrases, and not with simply her closet. She started plotting learn how to launch her personal clothes line, and as soon as the 2020 lockdowns took impact, she had the time to make it a actuality.
Murphy’s first iteration of Keely hit the web later that fall: It was referred to as Birthday Woman, with the identical splashy visuals and DIY ethos of her present-day assortment. First got here the first tulips, a grooving of yellow, pink, and blue flowers closely influenced by an authentic Marimekko print Murphy had seen of an ‘80s bed room that had it on the wallpaper, curtains, and bedding.
“I believed it was actually placing,” she says. “I’ve all the time had a scholastic or elementary colour palette [in my work].”
Her second launch was the poppy print, born as Murphy was attempting to suppose what her pal would love for her birthday; not lengthy after, Jenner was photographed on a yacht by Italian paparazzi sporting Murphy’s tank high design. A number of days later, Joe Jonas wore the identical tank high on tour. At this level, Chamberlain had already been sporting her hand-painted Keely tank for months.
“That was very fortunate,” Murphy says. “I feel it was sort of a time and place on Instagram when stylists have been pulling from there and there was this craft pattern occurring.” She credit the connections she made as a stylist for getting her design into Jenner’s suitcase. It’s since gone on to turn out to be her dominant and most profitable print, with Murphy portray a number of poppy designs every week.
The absurdity of all of it shouldn’t be misplaced on her: “Kendall Jenner’s tank high nonetheless pays my hire to at the present time.”
Murphy has since expanded to upwards of 20 hand-painted print choices, a course of that oscillates between her personal artistic imaginative and prescient and a “response” to the garment on which she’s portray. “With classic garments, a few of them have authentic colour tones or particulars on them, and so which may assist me provide you with new colour combos, shapes, or the position with the composition,” she says. “I attempt to do a little bit of analysis, however I spend a very long time form of picturing what one thing might appear to be in my head.”
The model is an apparent hit with Gen Z buyers who worth its sustainable gradual vogue spirit — but it surely’s equally successful with girls of their 60s and 70s. Murphy believes that the huge age group of her clients displays how her designs are harking back to classic textiles whereas additionally present as a pattern to the Gen Z buyer. “There are girls who benefit from the wearable artwork facet of it. They ship me little letters and playing cards,” she says. “They acquire issues [like this] and it is so cool. They’ll say, ‘Oh, this jogs my memory of my grandmother’s favourite flower, a yellow rose.’ I like it.”
“Kendall Jenner’s tank high nonetheless pays my hire to at the present time.”
Keely is a balancing act for Murphy, which retains issues fascinating for her. Every week, she paints her orders, after which retains a lookout on eBay for brand new silhouettes and materials to construct out a brand new design. There’s nothing quick about Murphy’s vogue, and her impartial creative apply has bloomed into a robust feeling of artistic management and confidence as a textile artist.
“I’ve discovered it to be actually rewarding and good for my psychological well being. I’ve a lot time to work alone and have a number of freedom,” she says. “If I do not really feel like doing one thing, I do know I ought to simply wait a pair days till it’s impressed.”
Murphy’s methodology is paying off creatively — and established retailers like City Outfitters and Lisa Says Gah are taking discover. In 2022, Lisa Says Gah licensed a Keely print for a cut-and-sew assortment, returning once more this 12 months for a hand-painted run of their finest promoting denim, tanks, and tees; for Earth Day 2023, City Outfitters tapped Murphy as considered one of 4 rising classic and handmade designers to create a one-of-a-kind capsule assortment.
“It’s thrilling to make use of their present assets, and my art work, to create elevated merchandise and be launched to their clients,” says Murphy. “It affirms that I’m making art work that’s each fascinating and commercially viable.”
As Keely continues to develop as a model, Murphy is eager to innovate; she has a dream of finally including cut-and-sew items to her assortment, upfront prices pending — particularly event put on, like clothes, that may nonetheless function a canvas for her prints.
“A costume is a very efficient singular merchandise. Put on an incredible costume and also you’re sort of achieved,” she says. “I discover there’s one thing actually very protected in that once I’m getting dressed, particularly seasonally, if it is scorching time and it is too sophisticated to consider anything, I really like that I can placed on considered one of my clothes and really feel actually achieved up. Folks like to see a costume on somebody. It could be actually cool so as to add my model of a reduce and a print into that historical past of clothes.”